ChurchPulse Weekly Conversations: Bryan Loritts on Fatherhood & Race in the Church

In a recent ChurchPulse Weekly episode, Bryan Loritts (president of the Kainos Movement and teaching pastor at The Summit Church) sits down with David Kinnaman to discuss fatherhood and Juneteenth. Together they talk about the challenges fathers are facing, learning from mentors on how to be a dad and the ongoing journey within the church towards racial equity.

Key themes from the episode:

• Fatherhood (or “being / becoming a father”) is a top item that both Christian and non-Christian men say is core to their identity (3:59)
• Black practicing Christians are significantly more likely to say that our country has a race problem than white practicing Christians (5:32)
• Discipleship as form of spiritual fathering (11:30)
• The greatest challenges fathers are facing today (14:35)
• Ministry opportunities to address men’s greatest felt needs (17:16)
• Finding mentorship for dad’s in seasons ahead of and behind you (18:59)
• Why the pursuit of racial unity matters for the whole Church, not just racial / ethnic minorities (21:46)
• The unique significance of Juneteenth for African-American communities (26:16)
• The particular openness of younger generations towards conversations on racial justice (27:48, 29:22)

Key quotes from the episode:

• “Part of being made in the image of God is we were meant to be fathered.” —Bryan Loritts (10:40)
• “Significance is a really huge felt need in the heart of most men, so the antithesis of that is what cripples us. When we feel like we’re failing at something, we listen to the voice of enemy, we download the messages of, ‘You’ll never be good enough, so why even try?’ Shame gets a hold of our heart. […] The best thing you can do is sit in a group with other people who are very flawed trying to figure this thing out and who are honest about their mistakes.” —Bryan Loritts (17:35)
• “Because we’re family and we love one another, we hear each other’s stories, and that’s what Juneteenth is about. It’s this whole idea that, ‘We’re family and there’s a segment of the body of Christ who this is their story—slavery and the emancipation–and I can’t have any hopes of unity unless I’m willing to sit in the proverbial car and go on the tour and hear this stuff.'” —Bryan Loritts (23:34)
• “The main thing I’d offer in my years of really wrestling with [racial unity] is getting into relationships with the ethnically-other person […] It’s this whole idea that proximity breeds empathy.” —Bryan Loritts (30:40)

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